The Last Illegal Slave Ship Landed in 1860. Nobody Was Charged

Added: 2026-05-01

The Clotilda, which arrived in Mobile Bay, Alabama in July 1860 carrying 110 enslaved Africans from Dahomey, was the last illegal slave ship to land in the United States, arriving 52 years after importing enslaved people had become a capital offense; despite the ship's owner burning and sinking the vessel to destroy evidence, he faced no legal charges, and the surviving Africans founded Africatown, whose descendants still live there today, with the ship's discovery in 2019 exposing a century-long cover-up of this significant historical injustice.